/**
 * file: journal_karbytes_19april2025_p0.txt
 * type: plain-text
 * date: 19_APRIL_2025
 * author: karbytes
 * license: PUBLIC_DOMAIN
 */

To Whom It May Concern:

I was having a debate with myself earlier today about whether or not people are responsible for their degree of well-being and success. As obvious as this may sound, I argued that each person (unless it is brain-dead) has some degree of conscious influence over its own experiences. Essentially, such conscious influence manifests as that person being able to decide how it wants to contextualize raw sensory inputs (or throughputs) even if that person has little to no control over which qualia arise in its "field of awareness". I argued that, generally, the more comprehensive and accurate that person's mental model of reality is, the greater degree of control that person has over what it experiences (which implies that agency is (generally) a function of how comprehensive and accurate an information processing agent's conceptualization of reality is). For instance, if I learn that some stores sell a certain type of product while other stores do not, I tend to not waste as much time and resources acquiring that product because I do not have to resort to mere trial and error to locate that product by visiting stores in a random fashion. Cumulatively, being relatively knowledgable about my environment (rather than more ignorant about it) tends to increase the efficiency at which I achieve my goals. 

What is particularly challenging is when accuracy, completeness, and personal relevance of knowledge is itself a relatively difficult to acquire "commodity". Based on what I have learned about reality as a human living in the particular space-time continuum I have (and am), I have reason to suspect that some people are intentionally trying to prevent people from obtaining knowledge which would empower beholders of such knowledge to achieve their goals (especially if those goals include overcoming being oppressed by tyrants and monopolists). If such tyrants and monopolists had their way, I think they would prefer that those they seek to keep subordinate to them would only be permitted to obtain an education which amounts to being indoctrinated into not challenging the status quo (especially through being terrorized into compliance with threats of being harmed if such people decide to rebel against how they are indoctrinated by the tyrants and monopolists to behave).

I can already sense that merely writing this note is putting strain on oppressive systems which seek to use fear of harm to control people. I want this note to remain publicly accessible as a historical artifact and as a reminder of the importance and power of a high-quality education.

Sincerely,
karbytes